Brave New Worlds the theme of upcoming Fresh Film Fest

The Fresh Film Festival – highlighting films by debuting directors,
students and professionals – is just around the corner, set to take
place
in Prague in the second half of September. Ahead of the festival, Radio
Prague spoke to Fresh Film’s programme director Michal Hogenauer.

We began by asking about some of the films as well as the main theme this
year.

“The main theme of the festival is called Brave New Worlds, which is a
reference to the famous novel by Aldous Huxley. We believe that the world
is developing technologies that fundamentally change cinema and this change
is not necessarily for the better, so we are trying to catch these two
different levels. We want to point out the turning point between cinema
material and digital files and want to show how modern technologies, new
media and visual effects have changed cinema, film language as well as
story-telling in general.”

In what ways is that theme reflected or addressed during the festival? Is
it through some of the entries? Discussions?

“The programme is divided into five blocks. One is the competition
section with some interesting new films from young directors and then there
is the Theme Section which is new. Here we will screen two documentaries.
One is called Side by Side and is produced by Keanu Reeves who interviews
icons of world cinema on this theme. The other documentary is called
Don't Try This At Home: From Dogma to Dogville and is by a German
documentary director. I’d say those are the main part of the programme in
this section. Apart from this we will screen films from Dogma which were
made in the 1990s when the new digital cameras, files and all this stuff
was new and fresh for filmmakers.”

You mentioned in the beginning that in some ways the focus on digital is a
turn for the worse. Why do you think that?

“It’s great that everyone can make films now. We have a phone, we can
very easily edit it on the computer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean
that the stuff we make will be good. Everyone can make films but that
doesn’t mean we are all filmmakers.”

“We also want to introduce an experimental film maker. We always try to
introduce less famous film makers in this section. Last year it was Peter
Watkins, this year we will introduce James Benning, an American
experimental film maker who had a lot of influence on Richard Linklater. We
will screen a few films by them as well as the documentary about their
relationship which is called Double Play.”

These debuting directors who are competing in the fresh generation part of
the festival. Are they directors who have, for example film school
backgrounds, or are they from different areas?

“We have six directors from all kinds of different countries. From
Germany, Belgium, Argentina, Poland, the USA. Some of them have recently
finished their film schools; others just made the films themselves, buying
the camera and filming without a budget. Some got a budget from one of the
classical production companies. All of them are debuting. These are their
first films and all the directors also wrote their scripts.”

In a way it must be very exciting for you and other members of the Fresh
Film team to choose from these works, because I imagine that a lot of them
are made by young people who are, for example, more willing to take risks
both in terms of style as well as in narrative forms. Is that the case?

“Definitely. We are trying to find exactly these kinds of films, which
are new and which are trying to work with the form or experiment with a new
one.”

In terms of even just maybe a scene or a particular movie, is there any
film that made it into this year’s selection which really impressed you.
For example, in terms of something where there is an element which you
haven’t seen before, maybe temporarily in a way a scene unfolds or in
other structure?

“I am the programme director of this section so I don’t know if it is
right for me to choose just one. Especially because the concept is that
every film here is very different from the other but ultimately there is
something in common. We are trying to find the creative and innovative work
in them as well as ideological independence and daring form. In some of
them you can just feel the budget there. All the tricks, coloring,
post-production and other stuff, which is for example Hardcore Disco from
Poland, but then we also have films like Above the Burning Sun from
Argentina, which is a completely collective picture where all the people
from the crew are working together and with the actor. It’s a sort of
half-documentary, half fiction film. Dependent on the taste of the
viewer.”